[Tramp1964]

I appreciate the shout out. I've tried as much as possible to keep the truck original. It's still running the original 230 with the 3 on the tree, and the cab had such bad rust along the top of the windshield, I didn't have any choice but to find a donor truck for that. Good thing was...I found a donor less than 3 miles from here, and the owner gave it to me just to get it out of his field. One of my neighbors brought his tractor over, and we brought it home using the front end loader with me sitting in the cab steering it along as it didn't have a rear end under it. It still had the driveline in it, and after tying it up out of the way, off we go. The knucklehead running the tractor didn't hear me when I said to go "really slow", and about made me go deaf when the driveshaft was beating the heck out of the floor right under where I was sitting on a metal bucket. What we did was cut the windshield post with a Sawzall, drill out the spot welds along the bottom of the back of the cab, and then just lay on the donor top and back wall. When the glass guy came by to see how things were going, he never noticed it had been cut. Of course, the guy that was helping me with this had been doing body work for over 40 years. Lester "Whiskers" Carter. He has forgotten more about body work than I'll ever know. We even put in about 40 hours of work on the donor trucks bed(fleetside)getting it ready for my truck, when I decided I had to go back with the stepside. The stepside bed is from a 62' I had at the farm, and I used it as it was with the exception of replacing the front header panel and bed strips, as well as the drivers side rear fender. That fender was donated by another crazy truck nut I met at a car show in Valley Center Kansas named Ben Kieth.He's got a great looking truck that has a story that'll top mine all to pieces. I got lucky installing the bed, as there is just a bit of difference between how a 62' and a 64' mount to the frame, and it came out really clean without having to use any of the countersunk bed bolts. Makes for a really clean and smooth install. The boards for the bed actually started out as a tree from a farm about 6 miles from the house where I go to cut firewood. A friend nearby has a small sawmill and cut the boards for me from that trip, and another friend does cabinet work in the winters when he can't be farming. I ran some stain over them after they sat in the barn for a couple of years to dry out, and then sealed them with some marine quality polyurethane. I guess you could say I'm cheap.
All in all, I'm happy with the way it's coming along. Sure, it has some dingers still in it, and it's going to take some time to finish rubbing out the paint as that was done in the garage here at the house. Any time I go out in it, I always get someone that wants to look or talk with me about it. It has a lot of family history with it, and I don't see myself ever putting it up for sale. I've got plans on driving it to Georgia sometime in Feb. to go see my brother, and he's on me for not taking my Saturn wagon with it's great fuel mileage. What I can't get him to understand, is a trip like that, with this truck, is more an adventure than just getting from here to there. What's the worst that can happen? If anything goes wrong, I'll just have to fix it on the way. Really, it's not like I haven't had my hands on nearly every nut and bolt on this truck already.
Again, thanks for the shout out. I've got an 81' shortbed stepside out in the barn that is going to be donating it's disc brakes and power steering sometime soon. And there's a tilt wheel, and the A/C,and the list goes on and on. You know how it is. Gotta go, going to be late for my therapy session.
Tramp